Arthur Griffith

Arthur Griffith (31 March 1872-12 August 1922) was the founder and leader of Sinn Fein, a socialist political party in Ireland that led the fight for Irish independence during the early 20th century.

Biography
Arthur Griffith was born in Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland on 31 March 1872, and he became an Irish nationalist associated with the Irish Republican Brotherhood movement. Griffith saw Paul Kruger, a leader of the South African Boers during the Second Boer War against the United Kingdom, as one of his heroes; Griffith decided to fight for his own people's freedom from Britain. In 1907, Griffith founded the socialist Sinn Fein party, and he supported the creation of a state modeled after Austria-Hungary; Britain and Ireland would be ruled by separate parliaments under a dual monarchy. However, the result of the 1916 Easter Rising was that republicans such as Eamon de Valera sought to create a democratic and independent Ireland as opposed to a monarchy with ties to the British, and Griffith decided to lead the independence struggle. In 1919, Griffith and other Sinn Fein leaders refused to take their seats in the British House of Commons, instead proclaiming a new parliament in Ireland; this action led to the start of the Irish War of Independence. Griffith led the Irish delegation to London in 1921, and the Irish signed a peace treaty with the British that created the "Irish Free State" as a puppet state of Britain. Griffith died of heart failure on 12 August 1922, just ten days before his protege Michael Collins was assassinated by the Irish Republican Army.